Our first night in Kenmore, the cats were stressed and restless, and prowled the house. Joey and I had a very broken night's sleep. Two of those breaks were mildly entertaining (in hindsight).

First, I juggled which cats were locked in the bathroom and which were roaming free based on who was fighting with who. For a while, we had Nami locked in the bathroom and Sawyer in our bedroom. It wouldn't be a problem, I figured... Sawyer is housetrained, he's always been okay with spending a night in the bedroom and he's always been able to 'hold it' until morning if necessary.

Well, there's a first time for everything. Sawyer gets tummy trouble when he's stressed. Can you see where this is going? I woke up very suddenly in the middle of the night with my "OH GOD NO" radar shrilling and the first thing I saw was Sawyer crouched between us at the end of the bed, studiously taking a dump on the quilt cover. I growled something like "oh no you did NOT", and bundled him straight into the bathroom. Joe was holding the quilt cover away from the quilt when I got back so I could clean off the pewp and remove the cover. The quilt itself was untouched, thank all that is good and holy. Moments like this remind me that Joe patiently puts up with a lot of... well, shit. Literally in this case.

We attempted to get back to sleep, sans-cats, and at some point around three-ish I got up to go to the bathroom. As I walked back towards the bed Joe started making this strange, strangled whimpering noise, lying still with the blanket half-covering his mouth. At first I thought he was playing a game and grinned, tugging the blanket away.

He wooshed out a sigh of relief and thanked me - he'd been having sleep paralysis. He gets that now and then. Sleep paralysis is a kind of dreaming where you're half-awake, aware of your surroundings but dreaming at the same time, and completely unable to move. Whatever messed-up visions you're seeing seem entirely real. Usually the experience is terrifying. Theories abound that sleep paralysis is the true explanation behind people's alien abduction experiences. Joe always sees the girl from The Ring, sometimes lying next to him, sometimes standing at the foot of the bed, sometimes crawling up the bed.

This time she'd been standing at the foot of the bed, and when I'd walked into the room, she retreated a bit but something messed-up started happening to my shadow, which loomed up threateningly. When I touched Joe the spell was broken and he could move again.

I've never had sleep paralysis myself, but I think if I'd ever endured the experience of watching the chick from The Ring crawl up the bed towards me I'd still be gibbering and drooling today.

Thusly, since that first night in Kenmore, whenever I get up in the middle of the night I make sure to touch Joe's hand, or shoulder, or face when I crawl back into bed... just in case. As it turns out, the strangled whimpering he was making was him shouting "Help me!"

In other news, I got an iPod Nano (4gig) and some M&Ms yesterday. Looking at the shiny device and the shiny candies scattered beside one another on Richard's rough-hewn kitchen table, I felt like a right filthy consumer.

Hammond will laugh, but my first order of duty today will be to buy a protective case and a screen protecter. I'm anal about not scratching mah 'pod. Fat lot of good it did me with the last one, FRED, who remained pristine and scratch-free for almost three years, then fell out of my bad one day on the way home from the ferry and was never seen again. 9_9

The lovely Liz / niaid is in town this coming week. :) Sadly, she brings with her some horrific Canberra-spawned virus so we shall have to hug her in full protective gear. Luckily Joe has about a million gas masks stashed somewhere (really). And in related news, I have Doctor Who season 1 (new who) on DVD, and guess which episode we watched last night? We both slept like babies afterwards. Nightmares of creepy dead gas-mask kid are easily trumped by happy dreams of Captain Jack Harkness. Joe has a mancrush on him, and who can blame him? My good god that man is pretty.

John Barrowman is hotness. So is David Tennant (although sadly we couldn't get tickets to Hamlet and they are now about 300 pounds on ebay).

Also public transport is the eater of iPods. I had my shuffle clipped to my jacket and during a huge rush on the Tube someone's bag caught and it went flying outside the doors - luckily a sprightly and honest hand popped it back to me.

When it rains get ready for a huge chorus of toads and frogs, Jason could never get to sleep.

Sounds like Joe is encountering the lady from the Grudge or Ju On, she appears in one sequence through the bed sheets and looks more or less like Sadako from the Ring. He probably shouldn't watch it. He should also try and normalise his sleeping pattern, it's the only way!

That sleep paralysis stuff scares the crap out of me. I'm... fairly afraid of the dark to begin with as I have a seriously overactive imagination and have a deathly fear and fascination with the paranormal... but the idea of SEEING things and not being able to do anything about them is terrifying.